NHS follows stars to help find cash for youngster’s brave battle with cancer

A YOUNG cancer victim’s plight so moved ministers they agreed the NHS should pay £160,000 towards life-saving treatment unavailable here.

Mackenzie can now be treated at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children at Yorkhill in Glasgow

Mackenzie Furniss, nine, has advanced cancer of the nervous system and desperately needed pioneering surgery in Germany costing £300,000.

Parents Kimberley and Jason, from Sauchie, Clackmannanshire, raised almost £110,000, but seemed to face an impossible task finding the balance.

But then their MSP Keith Brown wrote to Cabinet Secretary for Health Alex Neil and has since been told the NHS will meet 90 per cent of the costs. Mackenzie can now be treated at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children at Yorkhill in Glasgow.

The doctor who specialises in the technique will be flown to Glasgow to carry out the vital first stage of the treatment, using stem cells.

A delighted Kimberley, 29, said yesterday: “They secured the money for the stem cell treatment to go ahead at Yorkhill.

“That is a huge weight off our shoulders.

“We don’t know all the information yet, just that we have the funding for the first part and that she will be having the stem cell transplant in Scotland.”

The family still needs a total of around £150,000 to pay for the rest of the treatment but, with donations of £110,000 in the bank, that now looks a real certainty.

Mackenzie was diagnosed with an advanced form of neuroblastoma in 2009 and her only hope of survival lay with the children’s hospital in Stuttgart where Professor Peter Lang has treated more than 60 children with similar diseases.

Six of the youngsters who have completed the trial are in complete remission or have improved drastically.

Mackenzie’s parents have been pleading with celebrities on Twitter to retweet their JustGiving fundraising page and encourage others to donate. Grammy award winner Pink has donated £10,000 and Hollywood actor Justin Long donated a further $1,000 (£640).

That is a huge weight off our shoulders

Mackenzie's mum Kimberley

Former Celtic player Stiliyan Petrov, whose leukaemia is now in remission, has also donated £500, while Rangers player Lee Wallace raised £220 when he auctioned a signed picture of himself on Twitter. Boxer Hughie Fury has also donated £100.

Mr Brown said: “When I heard about Mackenzie’s condition, I wrote to the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Alex Neil, expressing my concerns and asking that all potential solutions be fully explored.

“I was delighted to receive confirmation on Friday afternoon, that, following discussions with Yorkhill and the German medical facility which offer s the trial treatment, around 90 per cent of the cost will be met by the NHS. While Mackenzie will have to travel to Germany for follow-up therapy, which will have to be funded privately, thanks to the generosity of so many people in Scotland and around the world, the amount is likely to be raised.”